Author's note: Thanks so much for the encouraging reviews. It means a lot to me to know that you've decided to see how the story plays out (it's still a mystery to me too).
It's time to get Castle's perspective on what's bothering him. This is a slightly darker, introspective chapter, giving voice to Castle's thoughts. I have a glass of scotch beside me too, as I write this - but his is probably more expensive.
Castle closed the lid of his laptop, seeing the illumination behind the Apple logo wink out, then ran his fingers across the aluminium surface.
He had finished another chapter of the next Nikki Heat novel, much to his surprise. It turns out that he could still work even when he wasn't in touch with the character's inspiration and his muse.
He sighed, shaking his head at the thought. Is a muse supposed to haunt you?
He hadn't seen her in four days. She had texted last night, their first contact since he'd last been in the precinct, but he had brushed her off. He couldn't bear to see her. That would be a step backwards, and such an easy one to make.
Nonetheless, he saw her everywhere. She was Nikki Heat on the covers of the books around his office. He saw her in the empty space beside him on the couch most evenings. He saw her standing in the office doorway. His traitorous mind saw her sitting on his bed, legs curled up beneath her. And when he fell asleep, he saw almost nothing else until he woke, abruptly, with sweat on his brow and a racing pulse. At least he was sleeping again.
He rubbed his temples in frustration, partly at himself.
Something had changed. It happened suddenly, but the circumstances were so mundane. It puzzled and fascinated him how the biggest changes in life often happened with so little fanfare. No dramatic revelation, or elaborate confrontation. Just something clicking into place, on an ordinary morning, on a regular day, and nobody else even notices.
He glanced over at the bottle of scotch whisky on the side cabinet, and shrugged before crossing the room towards it and upturning a glass. It was almost 8PM, after all.
Two weeks ago, they had an awful case where a junior office worker was murdered by his own boss, the body dumped in an abandoned van in the warehouse district. The victim's girlfriend was an employee in the same department – that was how they'd met – and they had everything ahead of them.
The young man had been murdered because he'd accidentally found out that his boss was skimming money from the company's petty cash to bet on horses. Not exactly a motive for murder, except that the boss's marriage was already on the rocks because of previous gambling problems, and his wife had promised she was going to take his two daughters with her if she ever found him placing bets again.
The victim's name was Jamie Cooper, and he never had any intention of telling anyone about the theft. It was all for minor amounts, and he needed the job. His boss, however, was under severe pressure and just snapped. He'd lost another four hundred that afternoon, when a horse called Slightly Snazzy failed to place. A man lost his life, brutally, and a future was dissolved – all because of a horse with a stupid name. It was so pointless. And they'd seen far, far worse cases too.
The girlfriend, Lynsey Kane, broke down completely when she heard the news. She was taken to hospital, and that's where they'd tried to interview her. It had been a futile exercise, though it had at least ruled her out as a suspect. Cooper had been her whole world, even though they'd only been together for just over a year. She was beyond distraught.
Castle's gaze had naturally moved to Beckett while the girl was in hysterics, going on and on about how her future had been taken away. Beckett had also been the one to get the news about the death of a loved one, and he always felt protective towards her whenever they were talking to a victim's loved ones.
He had known for quite some time that she was lying about not remembering the day she was shot. It came across in various little things. She would blink an extra time if the subject of her shooting came up, which was rarely. Whenever a suspect would feign forgetfulness, she would scoff but then hold herself back, being wary of completely denouncing the phenomenon.
But most of all it showed in her eyes. She kept checking. Whenever she was having a particularly bad day, or if they'd had an argument about something, or even just in odd moments where she was feeling contemplative, she would seek out his eyes and seem to search them for something. If he caught her she'd look away, but not before taking just another moment to satisfy herself that she still saw something in his gaze.
And she absolutely, categorically refused to talk about anything related to their relationship status. She was an expert at deflecting the subject, with sarcasm, jokes, distraction, or false annoyance. He had long since stopped trying to bring it up.
But something changed as he stood at the side of the hospital room, watching the poor girl's father frantically tell her to just hush, to take a deep breath, that it was all going to be OK somehow, that they all still had each other.
Lynsey's mind seemed to be stuck in a loop, unable to grasp the magnitude of the loss she was feeling. She was too smart for her own good, and she could readily see every part of the fairytale future she'd convinced herself that she and Cooper would have. She had been counting on it – had already been living in that future – and now all she could do was see every last facet of it disintegrate, never to return.
"We didn't have enough time!" she kept saying, her breath coming in great ragged gasps, until her voice started to scratch. The nurse had inserted a syringe into her IV and depressed the plunger soon afterwards, and the Lynsey just seemed to fold in on herself, going from keening to eerily silent in less than half a minute, then her eyes had fluttered closed.
The medically-imposed state of calm was somehow worse – more wrong – than the tears and the thrashing, and Castle was glad when they left the room a few minutes later.
He thought of Alexis as they walked along the endless identical corridors of the hospital complex, and eventually out into the grey light of day. Would she be so utterly unmade if he died? Surely not, or at least not for long. She'd find strength, and she'd deal with the loss, then she'd move on with her life. The thought of her just getting stuck like that – paused, running in a tight loop, drowning in grief without a way out – chilled him to the bone.
Life is to be lived, because tomorrow isn't guaranteed.
Then he had glanced over towards Beckett as they reached her car, and again caught her checking his expression. She quickly looked away, opening the driver's side door and getting in, … and then everything had just fallen into place. The click in his mind was almost audible.
He was the one who was paused. Stuck.
Always another today, and never a tomorrow.
"I'm waiting for something that's not coming," he said to himself, aloud, resting his hand on top of the car. His voice sounded almost surprised, to his own ears. A breeze cut across the parking lot, making his coat flap, and he shivered without noticing. He blinked, then opened the door and got in. Beckett had given him a questioning look, but she hadn't said anything.
That was two weeks ago.
He had spent a lot of hours since then, pacing the floor of his office in the loft. Making realisations, then playing them back, over and over again.
I'm waiting, and she's keeping me waiting.
She wants me as a partner and friend, but she runs from anything else.
She knows how I feel about her, but she's claimed for months that she doesn't remember.
He saw pieces of the future that he had slowly started to sketch in his mind over the past few years. All of the firsts that they wonderfully still had ahead of them. Their first real kiss, as a couple. Their first mutually-acknowledged date. The first time he could walk down the street with her, holding her hand. The first time they made love. The first time she would say the words back to him.
But it was all just fantasy.
Follow the evidence, Castle. You've got to follow the evidence.
He smiled a small, sad smile. Even the voice in his mind was hers. The evidence was damningly clear.
"She doesn't love me," he murmured. The clock on the wall ticked in subdued sympathy.
Amber liquid sloshed into lead crystal, made darker and more exotic by the dim light. The sharp smell simultaneously wrinkled his nose and wakened his taste buds.
A copy of Heat Wave sat only a couple of feet away from the whisky bottle, deliberately positioned at an irregular angle so to look as if it had been casually set down, to be picked up again at any moment. He grimaced at it, then used the back of his hand to knock it to the floor.
Life is to be lived, he thought, raising the glass in a mock toast towards his own silhouette in the nearby window. Because tomorrow isn't guaranteed.
He stared into the shadow where his reflection's eyes would be, but it had no wisdom to offer.
He sighed deeply, feeling suddenly much older, then lifted the glass to his lips.